Properly speaking, the Molasses Act was an old law which Grenville now made up his mind to revive and enforce. The commercial wealth of the New England colonies depended largely upon their trade with the fish which their fishermen caught along the coast and as far out as the banks of Newfoundland. The finest fish could be sold in Europe, but the poorer sort found their chief market in the French West Indies. The French government, in order to ensure a market for the molasses raised in these islands, would not allow the planters to give anything else in exchange for fish. Great quantities of molasses were therefore carried to New England, and what was not needed there for domestic use was distilled into rum, part of which was consumed at home, and the rest carried chiefly to Africa wherewith to buy slaves to be sold to the southern colonies. All this trade required many ships, and thus kept up a lively demand for New England lumber, besides finding employment for thousands of sailors and shipwrights. Now in 1733 the British government took it into its head to "protect" its sugar planters in the English West Indies by compelling the New England merchants to buy all their molasses from them; and with this end in view it forthwith laid upon all sugar and molasses imported into North America from the French islands a duty so heavy that, if it had been enforced, it would have stopped all such importation. It is very doubtful if this measure would have attained the end which the British government had in view. Probably it would not have made much difference in the export of molasses from the English West Indies to New England, because the islanders happened not to want the fish which their French neighbours coveted. But the New Englanders could see that the immediate result would be to close the market for their cheaper kinds of fish, and thus ruin their trade in lumber and rum, besides shutting up many a busy shipyard and turning more than 5000 sailors out of employment. It was estimated that the yearly loss to New England would exceed £300,000. It was hardly wise in Great Britain to entail such a loss upon some of her best customers; for with their incomes thus cut down, it was not to be expected that the people of New England would be able to buy as many farming tools, dishes, and pieces of furniture, garments of silk or wool, and wines or other luxuries, from British merchants as before. The government in passing its act of 1733 did not think of these consequences; but it proved to be impossible to enforce the act without causing more disturbance than the government felt prepared to encounter. Now in 1764 Grenville announced that the act was to be enforced, and of course the machinery of writs of assistance was to be employed for that purpose. Henceforth all molasses from the French islands must either pay the prohibitory duty or be seized without ceremony.